Book on hoarding disorder aims to unclutter children's minds

Konrad Marshall

Cleaning up: Tania Reid has written a children's book on hoarding disorder. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

Most people think they can spot the hoarder in their neighbourhood.

That old man in the shabby corner house, whose yard is filled to the brim with rusted and rotting refuse.

The old woman with the property so full to the fence line that it is difficult to imagine how she even gets in and out of her home.

Once they were called bowerbirds and packrats and magpies and seen as a quirky but harmless curiosity. An accepted local character with a nest of treasures.

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But all too often there are children lurking behind these grim facades, living in homes that are choked with clutter, cut off from friends and extended family and even the outside world.

Tania Reid, a former community mental health worker and now hoarding practitioner and author, has written a children's book she hopes might find its way into tiny hands in need of help.

''The first woman that I ever met who had hoarding disorder was 43, and she had grown up in a hoarding household - she didn't know anything else,'' says Reid, speaking from her bright terrace in Williamstown, where she runs her consultancy, For the Crowded House.

The book, An Ordinary House, tells the story of Dawn, whose father develops a hoarding problem after an emotional trauma. As their home becomes more and more cluttered, Dawn seeks help and finds it in her community - with the lollipop lady and a teacher.

The point of the publication - illustrated with Howard Arkley-style homes with sinister darkened windows, and characters with black eyes - is to let children know that seeking help is OK.

Reid, who has more than a dozen clients, currently works with a woman who lives in near squalor with her adult daughter, who is 29. The mother and daughter sleep in the same bed together.

The daughter grew up this way, always keeping her mother's secret, always watching the fearful reaction and silence of her family when a stranger came to the house and knocked on the door.

''They call it 'doorbell dread'. The burden kids carry in these situations is immense - the secrets they're pressured to keep,'' Reid says.

The book title is a conscious attempt to correct another myth or misconception about hoarding - that all such homes can be spotted from the street, characterised by collections of car parts and stacks of magazines on the lawn.

Since hoarding disorder was officially recognised last year in the DSM-V (the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, or ''psychiatrist's bible''), much more has come to light about this distinct mental illness, including that it affects potentially as many as one in 20 people.

Reid also trains community services officers - housing workers, drug and alcohol counsellors, social workers, etc - to deal with the issue.

The book is her passion though. It was published after raising more than $5000 in an online campaign through pozible.com. It will be launched in April, and a share of proceeds will go to the Alannah and Madeline Foundation and the RSPCA (''because people hoard animals, too'').